We need your vote to help Brazil to change policies against e-cigarettes

We need your vote to help Brazil to change policies against e-cigarettes

Since 2009 the sales of e-cigarettes and everything related is prohibited by Brazil’s legislation defined by Anvisa’s policy RDC 46/2009 (Brazil’s regulatory agency regarding food, drugs and alcohol) which considered the research and scientific studies at that time insufficient to determined the safety of those products.

This created a sad and paradoxal situation. Brazilians can own and use an e-cigarette, but cannot buy one using regular channels. That creates a black market full of overpriced devices and lots of fake products which threatens the health and safety of consumers.

9 years have passed and the policies are the same despite the many studies pointing out that e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than regular cigarettes, among other researches showing the benefits of switching from smoking to vaping.

Developed countries like England have adopted e-cigarettes as an official anti-smoking method advertised in hospitals and inside the public health service, helping hundreds of thousands of people to quit smoking every year.

Brazil’s government doesn’t show an interest in changing this situation so lies in the hand of the community to try to do something about it. There is an official Senate’s website that works with a petition system which can be of help. Its called “A Legislative Idea” and everyone can create one and try to raise votes and support for it. If the petition raises more than 20.000 votes the idea is sent to the Senate to open discussion.

As of now, at the time of this article, we have little more than 3.500 votes and the deadline is at 27 of December 2018.

There is no rule preventing people from outside Brazil to vote so we are making this call to action and asking vapers all around the globe to help.

To vote is really simple and it can be done with just one click using Facebook’s profile. If you do that maybe after logging in you will have to choose an estate and if that is the case just choose whatever you like, São Paulo ou Rio is just fine. If you don’t want to use your Facebook’s account you can also register an account in the site which is also easy and quick, just follow the 3 steps below:

2) Below you will see a screenshot with some directions on how to fill out the form. It’s pretty straightforward: full name, email, email confirmation, password (letters, numbers and 8 characters), password confirmation, estate (choose whatever, Sao Paulo is just fine) an anti-spam validation code and a button named “Enviar” which means “Send”.

3) Check your Email to confirm you registration by clicking at the link provided. After that you can visit the address for the petition and be able to login and complete your vote.